‘It feels like validation’: 13 Lahainaluna graduates receive $325K Maui Strong funding to pursue college

After everything she has been through, Lahaina-native Cheira Cappal can rest assured her first year of college is penned in black ink, with only opportunity lying ahead.

This stems from $25,000 scholarships she and 12 other Lahainaluna High School graduates each received on Wednesday, courtesy of Maui Strong Fund of the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation. The recipients will attend college on the continent, having their tuition and school-related costs subsidized. The 13 students include:

• Sophia Abut – Washington State
• Mikaila Acosta – UNLV
• Keith Nove Baniqued – UNLV
• Cheira Cappal – Portland State
• Christine-Kimberly Chung – Grand Canyon University
• Shayna Contreras – Grand Canyon University
• Emily Hegrenes – UCLA
• Jasmine Lagazo – UNLV
• Tevainui Loft – Pacific University
• Ryder Lombardi – Oregon State
• Guiness Ruiz-Rockett – Skyline College
• Talan Toshikiyo – Oxnard College
• Sanalio Vehikite – Snow College

“I’m so grateful to have this opportunity,” said Cappal, who will study business management at Portland State this fall. “It just shows that everything I worked for has paid off. Like, it’s just validation for what I’ve gone through—not just me, but all the recipients.”

Months ago, the ‘college question’ looked a lot bleaker for Cappal and her classmates.

In the destruction of the Aug. 8 wildfires, Lahainaluna’s college counselor Ginny Nakata Yasutake lost her home. That was the start of the school year for scores of Lunas, many uncertain of their future, let alone a path to college.

One mom, Marifel Lagazo, who had lost a job to the fires, recalled her oldest son calling her, saying “I’m scared.” Worried about the financial burden his college tuition was having on the family, he asked if he should drop out.

“I just told him, no, we’re going to get this one. Whatever it takes,” Lagazo said.

But the weight of hardship grew as her daughter, Jasmine, got closer to graduating high school and applied to colleges across the country.

Like Jasmin, there were a number of motivated soon-to-be Luna alumni who couldn’t afford their college aspirations this year. Yasutake (known by students as “Ms. Ginny”) noticed this when she met with seniors.

To find a solution, she approached Keith Amemiya, the president of the Downtown Athletic Club of Hawaiʻi and sponsor of the memorable drone light show at graduation.

“Let’s see what they say,” said Amemiya, recalling the moment they decided to chase-down scholarships for the students.

In time, the two stewarded a grant request to the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, and it was approved, all while Yasutake moved from place-to-place, uncertain of her own future. “Through it all, [Ms. Ginny] loved you guys; she fought for you guys,” said Amemiya to 13 students in the Lahainaluna’s library, where the scholarship ceremony took place.

The grant, worth $325 million in total scholarships, was sourced from the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation’s Maui Strong Fund. The Maui Strong Fund has over 240,000 donors from 75 countries, including thousands of corporate donors and co-venture partners.

“This award really is a recognition of over 240,000 people around the world who are thinking about you guys,” said Micah Kāne, CEO and president of the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation (HCF).

“It’s really, really a big relief to us,” said Marifel Lagazo, the mother of scholarship recipient Jasmine Lagazo.

Another Luna mom, Stefanie Hegrenes, said “it’s life changing” for her daughter and herself, as a mother to four kids. Her daughter, Emily Hegrenes, said the scholarship will help her to pursue her dream college, UCLA, to study neuroscience. It will also help her siblings, who attend Lahainaluna and Lahaina Intermediate, to attend college one day.

The security of knowing what’s next is not easily overlooked by the Luna Class of 2024, whose four years had been shaped by pandemic and wildfire. At the same time, many of its students don’t see those events through a ‘negative’ lens but as something that brought them closer.

As Cappal puts it, “Even after we graduate and for basically the rest of our lives, we’re going to call ourselves Lunas, because that’s what we are. And nothing can ever change that, especially after the fire and everything we went through. We came closer together as a school. So yeah, all of those memories and everything, they’re not going away any soon, anytime soon.”

When asked if HCF hopes to provide the scholarship for consecutive years to support the Lunas, Kāne responded, “absolutely.”

In any case, this year, the Lahainaluna community, donors and students achieved something many thought impossible:

Coupled with 168 Luna graduates who will be attending University of Hawaiʻi campuses this fall, 85% of its graduates will be attending college, a record number in the 193-year history of the school.

“On behalf of that 240,000 people from around the world, go get ’em,” Kāne said to the 13 scholarship recipients.